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As crews worked Friday to secure the burned Marshall Square Retirement Resort, post-fire activities were keeping company officials busy as well.

The human resources team for Resort Lifestyle Communities, the company that owns Marshall Square, was going to contact each of the retirement facility’s 33 employees, including both full- and part-time staff and management, to offer support during this transition period, spokeswoman Kelly Jo Hinrichs said.

A week ago, nearly to the minute, from when Rhetta Cadle was discovered in what remained of the burned Marshall Square Retirement Resort, she reunited with the firefighters who pulled her from the smoking rubble.

Cadle, 82, who lived through the June 2 blaze, made her way to the Columbia County Fire Rescue headquarters Tuesday morning to personally thank the men who rescued her.

She greeted them the same way she did the morning of the fire, with a smile and, “It’s great to see you,” as she hugged each man tightly.

Columbia County authorities are trying to identify a man they say backed his car into a Martinez convenience store early Tuesday morning and stole some items before leaving.

Just after 5 a.m., a man in a Mercury Marquis with a South Carolina tag backed the car through the front doors of the Sprint at 500 Flowing Wells Road, according to Columbia County sheriff’s Capt. Steve Morris.

The man, who was not wearing a shirt or shoes, crawled through the broken doorway and stole a can of Arizona tea and a pair of sunglasses before driving away.

Two people escaped an early morning blaze at 3514 Rainbow St. that heavily damaged the interior of the Martinez home and took the life of their beloved pet.

Columbia county Fire Battalion Chief Anthony Lovett said the fire was reported at 6:59 a.m. and crews were on the scene quickly from a nearby station on Fury’s Ferry Road. Lovett said even though it took only minutes to get the fire under control, the damage was done. He said the interior of the two-bedroom brick ranch structure was a near total loss.

Columbia County commissioners voted to approve the first reading of an ordinance that will create a new zoning classification for certain types of housing and bring an end to a moratorium on certain dense developments.

The ordinance creates a classification called Planned Residential Development district to replace townhome and cluster housing zones, according to the resolution passed Tuesday.

The following accounts were taken from Columbia County Sheriff’s Office incident reports:

Fire links to pipe burstings

An employee of an Evans business said early June 2 that increased water pressure to battle a nearby fire bursts pipes.

The employee of U.S. Battery at 717 N. Belair Road said that water pressure was increased in the early morning hours to assist firefighters battling the blaze at nearby Marshall Square Retirement Resort.